Always On The Market
Many of us handle our relationships like we handle our jobs.
Talia and her best friend Rosemary, sitting in the park watching the ducks playing with their ducklings in a nearby pond, while enjoying the cool evening breeze. Talia complains after hanging up her cellphone, “Jason and I are finished, and I just downloaded the Healing Hearts Dating App.”
Rosemary looks at her in wonder and asks, “Tally, how old are you now? And I want your third age.”
Talia eyed her in anger and whispers something not even the wind could hear, and he was passing with a full fall evening breeze.
“Girl,” Rosemary warns, “I already know your Turning Point age and your Perfect age, since we have been friends from the third grade in elementary school, don’t let me guess it and share it with the wind.”
“Alright,” she snaps in annoyance. “I am thirty-five years old,” slides from her mouth unwillingly.
“How many relationships have you had?”
Swaying her head and counting with her fingers, she reluctantly reveals, “seven.”
Rosemary adds, “what about your relationship with Anthony in the fourth grade, Brandon in the fifth grade, Paul in the sixth-grade and. . . ..”
The look Talia flung her she bites on to her tongue.
Talia stares at her in anger and said, “You know, if I had your memory, I would be the President of the United States. How can you remember all of that? I can’t remember most of the stuff we did in Elementary School and I was the one living it?”
“I will get to that point soon,” Rosemary said. “Not counting your school boyfriends straight up until you finished college, but you have had seven jobs and have been through seven serious relationships with guys you loved and who love you.”
“Therefore?” Talia demands.
“I mean no disrespect, but you handle your relationships like you handle your job.”
“And how the hell do I do that?”
“When you lost your job, you don’t give yourself time to do anything else, you immediately start job hunting.”
“And?”
“You do the same with your relationships. As soon as one relationship ends, you find ways to make yourself available immediately. To some people, you are always on the market.”
Many of us handle our relationships like we handle our jobs. Yes, putting yourself back on the market after a job loss is essential, especially if you have financial problems. A relationship, however, is different, because healing and recovery are necessary for us to function mentally, emotionally, and psychologically. Plus the amount of time, energy, love, sacrifices, and finance that we have invested in our relationship, along with the pain of loss, healing must take place.
PS. Humans have three ages: A Turning Point Age: It’s a point in our lives when something traumatic happens that changes our lives putting us on a course for better or worst.
The Perfect Age: This is a point in our lives when we are the happiest. A point when we wouldn’t change our lives for all of the diamonds in Africa. A point many of us wish to get back to if we could.
Then there is our third age, which is the most feared of the three. Our Real Age! And with what’s behind us, it could be hell or it could be heaven.
“What is behind you?”
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